Teach your horse to stay in a maneuver until instructed otherwise. This principle is crucial in all disciplines and applies universally to all horse training activities.
The Core Principle: Consistency in Commands
The fundamental idea is straightforward: when you ask your horse to perform a task, they should continue doing it until you command otherwise. This consistency is vital in maintaining control and ensuring your horse’s responsiveness and focus. In addition to the obvious visual seeing the horse to this, it also teaches the horse mental self-discipline.
Example: Steering and Movement
Consider steering: If you direct your horse to move straight, they should continue in that direction until you signal a change. This principle applies to all maneuvers, ensuring your horse remains focused and obedient.
Loping Circles
Applying this concept to a reining horse I want the horse to stay loping a circle until I tell them to do something else. This is essential for a good score as excessive reining will be seen as not willingly guided or resistant to guiding and will diminish the maneuver score. The goal is to have your horse continue the circle without guidance, staying on track despite distractions. In the video, Teach reining horse to circle on a loose rein, I am working on this exact skill.
The Process
- Start the Lope: Begin by loping a few circles, focusing on keeping your horse relaxed and attentive.
- Hand Position: Place your hand low, signaling your horse to maintain the circle without further guidance. When your horse is doing what you asked of him, your hand should be in this neutral or “home” position, not steering or engaged with the bit or neck rein in any way.
- Body Position: Your body should be riding in the desired circle with your head looking at where you are going. This should be your primary and first communication with your horse.
- Adjustments: Use subtle body or leg movements to correct the course if needed, avoiding excessive rein use.
- Dealing with Distractions: Horses can get distracted by all kinds of outside influences, so it’s crucial to gently guide them back to the task. Do not be overly hard or critical when your horse gets distracted but be the leader.
- The biggest obstacle that riders must overcome is the horse maintaining a consistent speed. If you are having that trouble the video, This Is Why Your Horse Speeds Up will help you.
Advanced Techniques
For this to progress to this stage you need to have mastered the riding skills talked about in, Riding Skills for Better Ranch, Reining and Cow Work. These riding skills and drills will get you riding centered and balanced. As you progress, you can refine your techniques, like using weight shifts for steering without relying on reins. Just riding faster or slower to speed up or slow down your horse, an advanced horse will respond with weight left and right in your stirrups to stay under you and centered. This skill is particularly useful in competitions to achieve higher scores. As you and your horse progress with advanced riding and training techniques like this, The Importance of Knowing Where You’re Going with your riding and training becomes increasingly important. Without this knowledge, you and your horse stay stuck in limbo.
This is a video of me showing Hank at at NRCHA show where we do reining work then cow work. You see a vidual of how I use my hand and body in my reining circles.
Conclusion and Invitation
Training your horse to maintain maneuvers requires patience, understanding, and a deep connection with your animal. Remember, every horse is unique, and adapting your approach to their needs can yield remarkable results.
My horse training journey has brought me from winning world titles to now trying to make every horse the best they can be and to help you to improve your equestrian knowledge.